Category Archives: Discoveries

A laundry picnic

A mother's diary, Contemplations, Discoveries

Several months ago, I have written in this blog that my son didn’t like tidying up.

This has changed. He doesn’t throw things on the floor anymore but puts them into boxes or onto the tables. I had to take one of his socks off the dining table today.

He also started to be appalled when we spill his toys on the floor in order to find one particular toy. Or he gasps and laughs afterwards.

This is the way Niklas tidied up last Saturday. He took an empty laundry basket, put it in the middle of our living room, which is also his playroom today, and piled various toys in it, so that the toy-tower was taller than him. Looking at his creation he said proudly: “Now I have tidied up!” I had to explain myself to him when I started to un-pile the tower and put the toys on racks and into boxes at the end of the day.

On the same day, I was folding up our washed and dried clothes as I recalled several occasions, on which I did this before. On some of them, I was in hurry and folded up the clean clothes and linen while standing in our master bedroom between the bed and the closet and trying to finish the task as fast as possible. I didn’t enjoy those. On other times and this time as well, I sat on my cover as one would sit on a picnic blanket and played memory while folding up the socks. I had fun. And I came up with a fun name for my new hobby. A laundry picnic.

The experiences on this day made me realize that we humans are not only complaining or seeing the things we usually enjoy sometimes as a burden, of what we often accuse ourselves in. I realized that we are definitely able to turn the activities, we might not have liked before, into a hobby.

When did you have your last laundry picnic?

Picture: Our window sill tidied up by Niklas.

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Questions and answers

Contemplations, Discoveries, Memories, Portraits

I sometimes look through the collection of quotes I gathered in many notebooks and on scraps of paper. The following caught my eye today:

“The value of the question depends on the answer.”

I heard it at an IT conference in London, in June 2008. I don’t remember who said it, but I remember hurrying to write it down on a folded paper sheet of the hotel hosting the event.

I am often nervous to put a question. If questioning goes easily, that is, if the answering person gives me a feeling that I have put a good question, then I tend to “over-question” and bombard the others with questions. This is followed by feeling resistance of those who answer and my consequential withdrawing from putting questions. And then again from the beginning.

Contemplation about this quote made me conclude that persons, whom I valued most in the past and those I value today, made and make my questions meaningful by their answers. They made and make me feel that what I said and say matters.

My father was the most prominent in this array of my personal heroes. He was a true listener. And I loved going with questions to him. His answers were always extensive and given without hurry. But also to the point. He had an instinct how much answer was needed.

When I think of those I know and interact with today, my niece and my son are the first who come to my mind, who find my questions intriguing and make me feel good upon asking them. And I love the fact that both of them are much younger than me. I learn a lot from these two sweet people. They do laugh sometimes at what I say, but I notice again and again how they stop and contemplate upon the questions I put. My son has not lost yet the ability to find everything new and worth considering. And my niece, in her mid-twenties, has kept it. While observing, listening and learning from them, I am rediscovering my ability to do the same.

And here is a quote, I discovered in German and translated into English, so, it might not be identical with the original. It confirms that children and young people might be ones of the wisest among us. Because of their ability to make experiences and to wonder.

“Die Weisheit eines Menschen misst man nicht nach seinen Erfahrungen, sondern nach seiner Fähigkeit, Erhafungen zu machen“.

“Human wisdom is not measured by a person’s experiences, but by his ability to experience.” George Bernard Shaw.

Picture: My father (the first from the right) with his students at the University of Annaba, in Algeria (around 1980). Students loved him. My guess, also due to his answers and his ability to discover and to experience the brilliance of the others.

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Various kinds of greed

Contemplations, Discoveries, Memories

Greed is not an instinct. We learn it early when our peers are interested in our toys and when the objects of our desire are not reachable immediately. So as soon as we get them we make sure not to give them away. Our second or third word is “Mine!”

My Mom told me a sweet story illustrating my greed when I was a child. I just got a tricycle as a present. I loved going with it in the yard of our block of flats. And I was sure not to give it to anyone. It was mine and I had to guard it as anything else I owned. My mother tried to convince me to share the tricycle with my friends. And I did share it. One of my friends had it for the whole meter or two. After that I stopped her and said: “You had enough. Give it back.”

As many adults with families, I started to value time and experiences more than things. Even books I love most – and I am a book worm, I must say – are not kept but given further. I love sharing them with friends and family.

So, I thought that valuing things less made me less affected by greed. Yesterday I proved myself wrong.

As anyone else, I have some tasks, which I push away from me and I procrastinate. One of these tasks was attracting my attention again and again, and I made a few starting attempts. I also tried to ignore it, to say “I don’t have to do it”, or “I would do something else instead”. But nothing helped. I had to do it. And in fact, I wanted to do it. It just took longer to see the results.

So, I decided to be kind to myself, to motivate myself and do very small steps. First arrange things into groups, then see how they feet, rearrange where necessary, and add missing pieces. Then adjust and finish.

It took me more than half a day yesterday to restart and finish the task. So, I had a few breaks for my family, for meals and housework in-between. For the things like ironing.

I like to iron clothes. Not every time. But many times I do. Yesterday, I couldn’t. I knew there was not much to finish the task, I started, and that I would manage it. This was not what was bothering me.

My thoughts were going again and again to the other tasks I pushed away. I wasn’t in the moment. I was thinking what I would do to accomplish them. The complexity I saw in them was reappearing. Besides, I couldn’t do them in that particular moment anyway. I was ironing! However, I still couldn’t stop thinking about these “heavy tasks”.

But why? Why was I striving for heavy tasks? Why wasn’t I enjoying the activity, which made me see the results immediately and which brought me often satisfaction and relaxation?

The answer was both surprising and simple. I wanted more. I wanted more of this good feeling of accomplishing and completing a difficult task. I couldn’t get enough. I wanted all and I wanted all in that moment. I thought of all the tasks I classified as difficult and I wanted to work on all of them at the same time.

As soon as I heard “I want more!” in my head, I had to smile. I was greedy! And strangely enough this realization didn’t make me ashamed or angry. Why should it? This feeling went away as soon as I smiled. I could breathe more freely again. And I finished ironing enjoying this activity again.

Greed is not an instinct, but it is natural to us, whatever the age. We can strive for things, experiences, smiles of others, joy and love we bring to and receive from others. Desire moves us forward, greed squeezes us and makes us unmovable. But it is also a helping indicator that we are off center and that we strive for something, which does us no good. And as soon as we notice the child in ourselves crying: “But I want it! I want more!” we can smile and come back to the wonderful place of the moment of now and see how wealthy we are, having family and friends, having activities which bring us joy and wealthy by simply being alive.

Picture: Strangely enough I wasn’t that eager to keep the toy in this picture. I was angry with the studio photographer, who took this picture, and have thrown the toy at him.

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Once, when I overcame procrastination, I wrote this:

Contemplations, Discoveries

Write, write, and write. This is what I often, very often, want to do. But almost as often, I pull the breaks, whatever the reason. Maybe, the main one is that I don’t always recognize writing as my heart’s desire – which it is – and start discussing in my head other things being more important and more valuable. Also in respect to what I write, I discuss as well.

What I didn’t do so often, until now, is just scribble. My writing always had to have a purpose. Just recently, I had an idea that it must be positive or done with a positive attitude.

And in this moment, I discover that just scribbling, without any specific purpose, feels so nice and relaxing. Who knows, if I will ever use it or publish some words of it or not. But movement of my pen creating words on paper feels so good that I wish myself to experience these tiny but immensely sweet moments again and again. Just wonderful!

P.S. And now I press “Publish”. 😉

Picture: relaxed in the Troll Forest close to Aalborg.

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Power of word combinations

Books I read, Contemplations, Discoveries

Words have certain power. They can motivate, they can hurt, and they can provide comfort. But only when they are set in certain chains, combined in certain special way.

We can hear wise words and agree with them. Some of the sentences and phrases we hear touch our hearts deep within. These words combinations stay with us and help us immensely.

Here is a bouquet of words I discovered yesterday, and which made me see the things I heard and realized before, in completely new light.

“Seeking strokes puts others in an awkward position, so if you do it, stop. Pause regularly and take pride in all your hard work as you go along. Then move on.” Christina Katz in “The Writer’s Workout”

We all search for praise. I’ve caught myself many times imagining how other people would praise me for what I have accomplished. And I worried and was disappointed if people didn’t praise me the way I imagined it. Then I thought I wasn’t good enough. But I forgot to realize that many people were often busy seeking for their own pat. They looked for appreciation as much as I did. And all those worries stopped me to continue doing what I had to, even if it was something I really enjoyed to do.

The wonderful sentences by Christina Katz provided me with a sweet and helpful mantra: “Take pride in your work. Then move on.”

During the last two days, I noticed several times how I wanted to fish for compliments and appreciation. Then I smiled, took pride in what I did, and moved on. This moving on included appreciating my loved ones and other people around me.

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